Taman Bukit Jalil Neighborhood Run 2008

Picture above - Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil, the "Missing Link"

“Hey, is there a Taman Bukit Jalil Run in May?”, “Who are organizing such a run and for what reasons?”

“Why I couldn’t find any information from any local sport’s web sites, newspapers and magazines?”, “They do not want anyone to participate?”

“Is it a scam?”, “I only heard of the IPOH KRI 10 miles Road Race for member only on the 4th May 2008?”

The answers - from my perspective.

Details of the Run

Date : 4th May 2008
Time : 7.00 a.m sharp, hopefully!
Venue: Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil, Car Park B.

Status: Registration closed due to overwheming response.

Background of the Event

Objective – Neighborhood, Friendship, Community & Fun

• To promote running as a healthy hobby for residents around this area.
• To promote more residents to visit and use the facility in Taman Bukit Jalil.
• To promote friendship amongst the frequent visitors to Taman Bukit Jalil.
  

Targeted participants – Non-Hardcore Runners, “Want to be” Runners

• Frequent visitors to Taman Bukit Jalil.
• Residents around the neighborhood of Taman Bukit Jalil, e.g. Bukit Jalil, Sri Petaling, Kinrara, Sri Kembangan, Salak South, Taman OUG, etc.
• Preferably “amateur” joggers, Weekend Warriors, uncles & aunties, morning walkers, future runners (currently non-runners), etc, however all runners are welcome to add variety and excitement to the event.

Promotion Strategy – Focus on Neighborhood, Surrounding Areas and friends

• Aggressively promote the event in Taman Bukit Jalil only because of the targeted participants.
• Through friends and words of mouth.

Number of Participants – Hopefully out-number the monkeys in the park!

• Planning for 100 participants and increase to 200 maximum if the response is good.
  

The Route – Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil

Picture above - the "Kindergarten Loop"

The route chosen by the committee for this run is the usual loops that we run during our training. This may not be the perfect route for a road race but we have to live with it because we decided not to venture outside the park. Since the distant of one round is less than 4KM, the participants have to run two rounds for the 8KM run. Below is a scenic photo taken at the "Lake Loop".

The planned route consists of an “FIGURE EIGHT” loop (but this figure eight is very much distorted so may be more appropriate to describe it as a double loops), and each participant has to complete two rounds of the “FIGURE EIGHT” loop, thus making the run very complicated and confusing. Because of this, the committee has to assign the 2 most capable runners (Ah Wei & Liew) from the group to man the route and supervise the marshals, in order to guide the participants on the right track.

From the entrance via Car Park “B”, the run will start at the “Space Walk”, less than 30 meters from the gate. Participants will run towards the toilet and turn right when reaching the T-junction, heading towards the Kindergarten Loop. The “Missing Link” is the road joining the two sides of the park, this will be the most busy road while every participant has to run along here four times, two times up the Kindergarten Loop and two times down.

When the participant comes down from the “Missing Link”, he or she has to run up the “Toilet to Toilet Slope”. This is the mini version of the dreaded Double Hill, the two existing wash room facilities were located at both end of this slope. Once the runner conquer this slope, he or she will run past the Children Playground towards the “Lake Loop”. It is a pity that we have to exclude the “Snake Curve”, the path descending to the lake from the children playground because it is narrow and winding. After completing the “Lake Loop”, the runner will be running back to the Starting Line to continue for the 2nd round. The 2nd round is exactly the same as the 1st round except that the runner will be running towards to the gate of “Car Park B” for the last 10 meters. The picture below at the left showing the finishing area and behind the gate is Car Park B.

The narrow and winding "Snake Curve" leads you to the Lake from the Children Playground.

Prelude

The idea of organizing this event was mooted two years back by a group of active runners in Taman Bukit Jalil. We have unofficially formed a committee to work on this event to ensure that it can materialize. There are some obstacles and most apparent is the date, we need to decide on a date before we can proceed. There are enough races to occupy most Sunday morning and fixing a date not to crash with any event is a challenge.

Beginning of this year, we have made up our mind to fix it on the Sunday, May the 4th, 2008. We are aware that the Bomba Fireman Run was initial schedule on the same day according to almost all runners’ calender. Since the organizing committee is all active runners, we are prepared to forgo the Bomba Run this year. However, it was pure coincident that later the Bomba organizer announces their event to be held on the Fireman Day, 10th of May, a Saturday.

By virtue of a Taman Bukit Jalil based regular runner, I found myself being included in the committee. However my contribution is very limited while most of the rest put in tremendous effort and time to ensure that all preparation works are progressing well. Our “Flying Fish”, John Chow who designed the registration form, planned and charted out the running route.

Ronny Yong & Mr. Ting (oops, is he Mr. Chan, I am confused) who actively recruit the sponsors and the “targeted” participants, together with Mr. CP Chan (who usually talk more than run), sorted out all promotional materials and most importantly secured the sponsors for the 200 plus pieces of finisher’s medals and the position trophies, enough foods, enough drinks, enough lucky draw prices (Hopefully I may be exaggerating).

From the progress, I foresee the event will be successful held with not much complaints and untoward incidents. My only worry is, we will scare away the native and the rightful dwellers of the park, i.e. the birds, the monkeys, the snakes, the monitor lizards, and the wild boar. The tortoises and the fishes should be safe because no swimming in the lakes or ponds will be allowed for this event. As the registration forms came in exceeding our expectation, Mr. Lim HS has put in quite some effort to sort things out.

There are not too many unexpected incidents to curl the progress of the preparation of this event, everything seems to go on smoothly (Maybe I am a bit optimistic). We have enough sponsors, both named and anonymous, contributing enough materials and resources to stage this event. We have enough participants registered to-date and in fact, we have to turn away many people that called up. If not because the planned & chosen route for the race will be too congested and overcrowded to accommodate the runners, we could have staged a much bigger event with two or three times more participants.

Everything seems ready now and we are keeping our fingers cross and waiting patiently for the “BIG DAY” which befalls on the 4th May 2008.

Last but not least, thanks to all the 200+ registered runners and the generous sponsors.